When asked why he had eaten the pencil leads, Liu initially said he had been hungry.

Later he admitted that two older fifth-grade girls, who had been bullying him at school for a while, told him that they would stop picking on him if he swallowed a handful of pencil leads, the report said.

If he refused, they told him they would continue to bully him, it said.

Liu’s parents have reported the incident to the police, who are now investigating.